House Passes Bill to Curb NSA’s Data Collection Programs

Protesters march to the U.S. Capitol to voice opposition to government surveillance of online activity and phone calls, on Oct. 26, 2013. Photographer: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images

May 22 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. House of Representatives
voted to curb some National Security Agency powers in
legislation that Internet companies and privacy advocates said
won’t do enough to prevent spying on innocent Americans.

The bill, approved 303-121 today, would end one of the most
controversial domestic spy programs under which the NSA collects
and stores as much as five years of phone records on Americans.
The bill arrives almost one year after the spying was exposed in
documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

A group of technology companies, including Facebook Inc.,
Google Inc. and Apple Inc., opposed the bill because of what it
called an “unacceptable loophole that could enable the bulk
collection of Internet users’ data.” Some lawmakers who voted
against it agreed the legislation should have been stronger.

“We have learned that if we leave any ambiguity in the
law, the intelligence agencies will run a truck right through
that ambiguity,” Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California
Democrat, said during debate today on the House floor.

The bill is H.R. 3361 and would still need to be approved
by the Senate before being sent to President Barack Obama. The
White House yesterday said the president supports the measure
because its “significant reforms would provide the public
greater confidence in our programs and the checks and balances
in the system.”

Making Compromises

Representative James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican
and chief sponsor of the legislation, said negotiations with the
Obama administration “were intense” and the bill will prevent
the NSA from collecting records in bulk.

“We had to make compromises,” Sensenbrenner said. “But
this bill still does deserve support. Don’t make the perfect the
enemy of the good.”

Sensenbrenner said passing the bill “is a first step and
not a final step in our efforts to reform surveillance.”

“We have turned the tables on the NSA and can say to them:
we are watching you,” he said.

Lofgren and Representative Ted Poe, a Texas Republican,
said they supported the bill as drafted by the House Judiciary
Committee. However, they said they couldn’t support the final
changes made to the bill.

“These changes appear to allow multiple interpretations as
to what the NSA can and cannot do,” Poe said on the House floor
today. “The NSA is out of control. It seizes massive amounts of
data on Americans without their consent.”

Phone Records

House Speaker John Boehner indicated the bill is all that
will be done legislatively this year to change NSA spying. “I
do believe this will address the issues that need to be
addressed at the NSA for this year,” the Ohio Republican told
reporters.

Boehner said he wasn’t aware of the specific concerns by
Internet companies and that “their views were clearly
represented in the discussion that came to this agreement.”

The NSA has been collecting records including numbers
dialed and call durations without the content of conversations.

If today’s bill becomes law, the records would be held by
Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc. and other phone carriers.
The government would have to get an order from the secret court
that oversees NSA spying in order to compel the carriers to
search the records for counterterrorism investigations. The bill
also includes provisions for emergency circumstances.

The measure largely codifies a Jan. 26 agreement that
Facebook, Apple and other companies reached with the Department
of Justice to disclose details about how often they turn over
data about their users in response to government national
security requests.

Technology Coalition

Attention now turns to the Senate, where members have
indicated support for similar legislation. The Senate Judiciary
Committee plans to consider the bill in June, said Senator
Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and chairman of the panel.

Leahy said the House vote “continues the bipartisan effort
to restore Americans’ civil liberties,” though he was
disappointed the bill doesn’t include “meaningful reforms”
that were in the original version. He vowed to push for those
changes through his panel.

The group of Internet and technology companies, called the
Reform Government Surveillance coalition, have said they want to
be able to disclose more.

It said yesterday that the legislation “has moved in the
wrong direction.” The coalition formed last year in an effort
to distance Internet companies from perceptions that they
willingly cooperated with government surveillance programs.

Personal Identification

“While it makes important progress, we cannot support this
bill as currently drafted and urge Congress to close this
loophole to ensure meaningful reform,” the coalition said in a
statement yesterday.

The coalition supports limits on the government’s ability
to collect data about their users and permission “to publish
the number and nature of government demands for user
information,” according to its website.

Lawmakers, companies and privacy groups opposed to the bill
mainly objected to language added that would allow the
government to collect records that identify “a person, entity,
account, address or device,” which critics say is too broad.

The House Rules Committee didn’t allow any amendments to
the bill on the House floor today.